UNTRAINED
UNTRAINED - Merrigong Theatre Company
UNTRAINED - Merrigong Theatre Company
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What is dance? An old question is not always a good one<br />
The Age<br />
13 March 2009<br />
Reviewed by Jordan Beth Vincent<br />
In New York City in the 1960s and 1970s, a group of post-modern dancers set about<br />
redefining their art form by asking the most basic question: what constitutes dance?<br />
Key aspects of their choreographic and artistic explorations included using untrained<br />
performers, a democratic choreographic process, and rejecting traditional forms and<br />
structures.<br />
Nearly 40 years on, Lucy Guerin does her own exploration of those concepts in Untrained, a<br />
work that — considering the long history of such explorations — feels dated. The premise is<br />
simple: four men appear onstage, two of whom — Byron Perry and Antony Hamilton — are<br />
trained dancers. The other two — Ross Coulter and Simon Obarzanek — are visual artists,<br />
meaning that they bring a certain level of artistic awareness and creativity to the<br />
performance, yet have no physical training.<br />
There is a strong sense of a rehearsal-in-progress, an impression confirmed by the casual<br />
costumes of trackies and runners, as well as minimalistic lighting. The men take turns<br />
performing a series of tasks, each designed to create a portrait of the individual performer.<br />
Some are as simple as acting out a favourite movie scene, while others are slightly more<br />
intimate. There are some amusing moments, mostly surrounding the fumbled and clumsy<br />
attempts by Coulter and Obarzanek to imitate the complex movement patterns of Perry and<br />
Hamilton.<br />
Untrained succeeds in exposing some sort of truth about each of these performers. These<br />
are real men, who deserve to be commended for their brave willingness to reveal their<br />
insecurities, vulnerabilities and idiosyncrasies to an audience.<br />
Unfortunately, the piece never develops past the comparison between dancer and nondancer,<br />
even as it tries to emphasise the fallacy of such a distinction. Untrained fails to<br />
break any ground and, although seeing it may be mildly entertaining, this work is ultimately<br />
uninteresting.<br />
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/03/12/1236447401936.html